Illinois: A Mess of Committees

Although his father was a onetime Chicago
alderman. Illinois Democrat Otto Kerner, 53, never really developed
much stomach for rough-and-tumble politics. "I've never been a ward
leader or a county leader, and I'm not interested." he says. Elected
Governor in 1960 on his record as a Cook County judge. Kerner began
putting off state problems by appointing committees to study them. This
summer his procrastination has come home to plague him: Illinois is in
the worst fiscal mess since the Depression '30s.

Unless something is done, the state will have a deficit of $168 million
by next July i. It...